Melbourne Potluck

Melbourne Potluck focuses on not only creating a participatory public experience but also addressing the modern society paradoxical feeling of disconnectedness, such as “alienation, isolation, loneliness”, amongst people in public spaces, throughout participation and interaction, situated in social contexts in smart cities.

This project explores spectators’ social interactions and experiences with tactile engagements from their smart devices and a form of interactive media façade. The association between individual uses of mobile technologies and collective uses of media façade projection system challenges how people feel about public interaction and experience in urban environments as well as how people engage with each other – together.

The project proposes the concepts of the viewer as co-creators, the interactive system as facilitator and motivation as creating a sense of belonging: forming a temporary community with “being connected” – social presence. The combined concepts as a new framework that seeks new perspectives from the recent growing trend of participatory cultures in public spaces.

The project supports the collective interaction to redefine and reshape to whom, with how and what we are sharing together in the co-creation through social interaction and experience. It is vital that people learn how to engage when engaging with each other – together within urban public events.